Drunken Confessions
by guessthisismypenname
Summary: Dumbledore's funeral was hard for everyone. But what happens when Ron decides to drown his sorrows in mead? Based on a prompt sent to me on tumblr.


_Prompt_ : _During HBP. Ron gets drunk and confesses Hermione he wants to have her children. They are not in relationship._

 ** _Disclaimer: Harry Potter isn't mine._**

Hermione observed the display in the common room with a mixture of disgust, exasperation and understanding. Dumbledore's funeral hadn't been easy for anyone, and so soon after such a momentous event, they had to pack up and leave Hogwarts. And in their case, it was perhaps for good. Ron and Hermione would follow Harry anywhere, do anything. But it was still rather hard to think that they might never walk these halls again. And while she was coping with it by crying herself to sleep at nights and she had no clue how Harry _ever_ coped with any of it, Ron seemed to have other ideas. Or rather Fred and George did.

The twins had decided to go back by the Hogwarts express with the rest of them, and were currently doling out rations of _Knotgrass Mead_ that Lee Jordan had managed to produce from somewhere. Hermione wasn't sure she wanted to know the details. So while the Weasleys, along with Lee, and a few of the twins' mates got steadily more inebriated, she sat in a corner sofa pretending to read. She would flip a page and cast disapproving looks at the group every once in a while, just to maintain some sense of normalcy in this chaos. Because surely Ron would be suspicious if she acted like she didn't care about a hundred different rules being broken right in front of her.

However, the truth was that although he was making a complete spectacle of himself, she didn't really begrudge him a few moments of respite from the whole ordeal, whichever way he found it.

Harry had excused himself a few hours ago and tread up the stairs to the boys' dormitory with a heavy step. Ginny, stone-faced, made Fred pour her a glass of mead too. He hadn't needed much persuading though. Looking rather unnerved at her expression, he had handed her a glass immediately.

A couple of hours later, the common room was slowly emptying until eventually only Ron, Ginny and Hermione were left in the common room. Swaying on her feet, Ginny said her goodnights to them both and headed to her dorm.

Ron sighed and rubbing his eyes, noisily made his way over to her corner. He looked tired, but definitely seemed more drunk than the others had. She watched him stumble over to the sofa and collapse next to her.

"Wotcher doin', Hem-minee?"

She wrinkled her nose and turned back to her book.

"Hem-mineeee," he whined when she continued to ignore him.

"What is it, Ron?" she sighed, giving up on any pretense of reading.

"Nothing," he said petulantly.

She raised an eyebrow.

"You're very drunk," she said matter-of-factly.

"No, I'm not!" he said indignantly, letting out a loud burp.

"Ugh, Ron!" she exclaimed.

"'m sorry," he replied with slurred r's as he stared earnestly at her. "Yer ver-ry pretty."

He reached out and flicked her cheek with his index finger.

"So pretty."

Feeling rather astonished at this sudden turn of events, all Hermione could do was gape at him.

"Do you think I'm pretty?" he asked, looking suddenly alert. But Hermione knew he would never have let those words leave his mouth if he had been in his right mind.

"Uh…yes, Ron. Very pretty," she replied.

Ron grinned, looking very pleased with himself.

"We're both pretty then," he said, nodding solemnly.

He stared off into the distance in contemplative silence. Hermione was slowly becoming comfortable again letting his hiccups become background noise to her reading, when he started mumbling something under his breath.

"What's that, Ron?"

"I was – _hic_ \- thinking we'd make pret - _hic_ \- pretty babies," he said, looking at her earnestly, as if he hadn't just completely obliterated this fragile, careful dance they had both orchestrated around each other over the past six years.

Her eyes widened, and lips forming a soft O, she struggled to maintain her composure. He obviously didn't mean anything he was saying right now. His drunken mumbling was just that – drunken, and she would be a fool to take him seriously. _Right_? On the other hand, she remembers the many sayings that her aunt kept repeating whenever she came around for the holidays. _Drunk talk is real talk_ , she had always said sagely to her mother.

"I mean, they'd ha-have your pretty eyes, and my tallness – _hic_ \- taaallness – is that a word, _tallness_ ," he rolled the word on his tongue, then shook his head. "and your pretty hair."

Had he just called her _hair_ pretty? That, more than anything, convinced her that Ron was clearly talking nonsense.

"Uh, Ron-"

"I hope they are ginger though," he cut her off. "I know you said it was a recession gene, dunno-"

" _Recessive_ gene, Ron," she corrected. _Yes, that's the thing to be focusing on right now, Hermione_ , she shook her head at herself _._

"Uh-huh," Ron continued, unconcerned. "Yeah, bid, heh, _big,_ red, curly, pretty haired child-ren. I'd love to – _hic_ \- to have your babies, Her-my-oh-knee."

His hiccups punctuated his rambling, and Hermione, still feeling slightly dazed at all his unprecedented confessions, tried hopelessly to get some semblance of control in the mostly one-sided conversation. She knew that if he happened to remember it the next day, he would probably find some way to set their relationship back by several years. She had to find a way to ignore all the curious feelings his words were evoking in her and put an end to his proclamations.

"They'd ace all their NEWTs," he was saying. "Don't you think so, Hermione?"

He had been content to just sit there and talk, but her input suddenly seemed very important to him.

"Uh…I- yes, Ron. Sure."

He nodded, satisfied and let out a huge yawn. The strong scent of knotgrass with an underlying hint of honey assaulted her senses, somehow making her feel almost as heady as the conversation had.

"Y-you should rest, Ron," she said hastily, before she did something she might regret. But he was already drifting off, looking at her blearily when she spoke.

"Hmm," was all he said before he was essentially dead to the world. Relieved, but also feeling slightly disappointed, Hermione stood and drew up his legs onto the sofa. She quietly summoned a quilt from her dorm and draped it over him as he began to snore lightly.

She stared at him, her cheeks still warm, wondering if he'd remember any of it come tomorrow. Maybe his emotional range had indeed expanded over the past year and they could finally stop pretending. She sighed.

Against all rational thought, she goes up the stairs with fervent hope in her heart, the trials of the day pushed to the back of her mind. Perhaps one day he'd be able to admit all those things without having to inhale nearly a whole bottle of mead.


End file.
